


Walk Straight Through Hell With a Smile

by starlabsforever



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, I love these two & their dynamic, being a superhero is hard, iris and cisco being best bros, part fluff part angst, they just get each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 10:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10615236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlabsforever/pseuds/starlabsforever
Summary: Somebody needs to be the optimist on Team Flash, and it's a burden that Cisco and Iris carry together. They take care of things, and in the stillness of a late night in STAR Labs, they take care of each other. Sometimes you need a friend to do that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around 3x14-3x15 ish.

It was 1:38 AM, and nearly every light in Central City was off, but STAR Labs was still lit up like a lantern. Several sections of the building blacked out as Cisco hit the main switches, but he left the last ten on. He preferred to go into each room and turn them off by hand. It was a sort of nightly ritual that helped to calm his thoughts and unscramble his brain, and boy, did he ever need to unscramble. He felt so tense that his yoga instructor would be disappointed at his lack of zen.

He turned off the light in Caitlin's lab, taking mental tally of the day. Everyone was still alive. Nobody had been maimed, kidnapped, or possessed by Savitar. He flicked off the light in the med bay. Mild injuries had been sustained today, but nobody was seriously hurt. Caitlin had smiled today, and seemed happier overall. Barry was beginning to listen to reason where Savitar and Iris were concerned, hopefully a sign that he was doing better emotionally. Cisco hadn’t murdered Julian for invading his workspace. All in all, a success.

Still, life at STAR Labs felt like walking on eggshells these days. It was a surefire sign that things weren’t great when you marked success by lack of horrific casualties. Just because no-one was dead, dying or insane didn’t mean that everybody was happy. There was an underlying tension and sadness that weighed on them constantly. Cisco was trying his best to keep their heads above water with his jokes and optimism, but that was a heavy burden to bear.

He hit one of the lights in the Cortex and headed for the break room. When he entered, he found Iris standing on a stepladder, reorganizing something in the cabinets above the counters. She was dressed down in jeans and a black t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, with a few pieces sticking out around her face.

"Hey," he said, and she glanced down at him, startled.

"Hey, you." She smiled. "I didn't realize you were still here. I thought everybody else had gone home."

"Ditto. Cleaning out the pantry again?"

She sighed dramatically. "Someone's gotta. Do you know how many empty coffee cans I found in here last month? _Five._ I knew superheroes liked to hang out in farmhouses, but I didn't think that meant they were _raised_ on farms. And the sheer amount of food you all eat- Barry and Wally have an excuse, but none of the rest of you do."

Cisco leaned against the door frame. "You know you don't _have_ to keep the break room stocked all the time."

She pushed the cabinet closed and leaned an arm against it. "Yes, I do. Caitlin and Barry would never eat if I didn't."

That was true. Getting Caitlin to eat was a formidable task even when there was food in the break room. "I swear, none of these people know how to take care of themselves. Did they all miss the part of college where you learn to cook ramen for every meal?”

"They have a lot on their minds," she said. "Everyone's spreading themselves pretty thin, and I think we're all feeling the tension."

"Clearly." He blew a strand of hair away from his face. "No offense, but your boyfriend is getting on my last nerve.”

Iris examined her cuticles. "I know. I'm going to say something to him, I just-" She breathed out a sigh. "I don't know what _to_ say." 

Cisco picked up on her discomfort and changed the subject. “He's not the only problematic boyfriend. _Caitlin's_ boyfriend is wearing out his welcome. You know, I think we just need to outlaw boyfriends.”

Her brows shot up. "I thought she said that they weren't dating.”

He scoffed. “That just confirms that they _are.”_

Iris sat down on the counter. "Sounds like you’re feeling the tension, too.”

"What, me? Pssh. I'm so chill right now."

"Right, because that's why you took the same pen apart ten times today." She kicked the stepladder with her foot, inviting him to sit, and he did. "Three Good Things. Go."

Three Good Things was a sort of game that he and Iris had invented to keep themselves on the upside of emotional stability. It was pretty self-explanatory, but today, he was at a loss. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Um, one, Savitar didn't try to kick our asses today-"

"Nuh-uh." She kicked him gently. "The lack of something awful does not count as a good thing."

He wrinkled his nose. “Whose dumbass rule is that?”

“ _Yours.”_ That was true. The rule was that you had to think of three good, _truly_ good things about the day, even if the world was ending, which was often the case. Things like “none of our close friends were horrifically murdered” did not qualify as truly good things.

“I can’t think of any.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I forfeit.”

She kicked him again. “You can’t forfeit Three Good Things. That’s the whole point. If it was easy to think of good things, we wouldn’t need a game.” He looked at her reproachfully. “Okay, fine, I’ll go first. One, I actually woke up _before_ Barry today, so I got to see how cute he is when he sleeps.”

Cisco held up a hand. "I'm gonna end that sentence before it drifts into TMI territory." 

“Oh, grow up." She rolled her eyes, but they both knew that he was joking. The actual good thing in that sentence was that Barry had been sleeping. “Number two, my boss told me that he likes the investigative slant on my articles and that if I keep it up, he’ll transfer me to Crime.”

Cisco reached up to give her a high five. “Making the fam proud. Congrats.”

“And, three…” She chewed on her lip, thinking. “Nobody got kidnapped today?”

“You dirty cheater.”

“Kidding, kidding. Uh, Wally and Jesse are the cutest. They make each other so happy.” Her smile dimmed. “It makes me feel better knowing that he has someone. Since I might not always be around.”

“Hey.” He stood up so that they were at eye level. “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be around here for a long time. I promise."

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You _will_ ,” he said fiercely, and hoped that if he said it firmly enough, it would come true. She was twisting her fingers in the end of her ponytail, a tell if he'd ever seen one. "Okay, that didn't count. You have to do another one.”

She looked at him indignantly. "Why? I did three. I'm done."

“Nope.” He leaned against the counter. “Like you said, that’s the point. It negates the whole game if your happy things make you sad.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Okay, but this is gonna be a stupid one.”

“Rule number two,” he reminded her. Rule number two was that no good thing was too trivial. If it was a tiny spot of light on a miserable day, it counted.

“Right. Um, when I was at Jitters this morning, they were playing Hamilton. Your turn.”

“Hey, Hamilton is never stupid. Lin-Manuel Miranda just rolled over in his grave.”

“Lin-Manuel Miranda is _alive._ ”

“Okay, Alexander Hamilton just rolled over in his grave.”

She hit his arm. “Stop stalling.”

He sighed. “Fine. One, the sunrise was really nice. Never mind the fact that I saw it because I was here all night-”

“Happy,” she reminded him.

“Two, uh, we had Trader Joes tamales for lunch, thanks to the break room angel-” She smiled. “-and, three, Caitlin smiled today.” His breath hitched on that last one. Those smiles were so rare these days and it made his heart hurt to think about it.

“That is a good thing,” Iris said softly.

Cisco shook his head, trying to shake himself out of his funk. “Sorry, that one didn’t count.”

“Why not?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Thinking about Caitlin pretty much always makes me sad.”

Iris bit her lip. “Well, that should mean that her being happy is an even better thing.”

“It _should,_ but…” He stared at a coffee stain on the floor. “I know she’s scared too, but I’m terrified. I _know_ what I saw in the future. There’s no way around it. It’s like this knife hanging over my head.” He hugged himself tightly. “I can’t stop thinking about when-”

“Hey.” Iris placed a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe,” she said firmly, and he did. “I know. You’re not the only one with the future hanging over your head.”

He glanced at her quickly. “Jeez, I’m sorry. That was totally insens-”

“It’s okay. That wasn’t my point. I just mean, you can’t let it consume you. All we can do is keep moving forward and make every moment count.”

“I guess,” he said.

They both stared at the break room floor under the flickering fluorescent light. “Wow,” she said after some time. “We both really failed at that round.”

“For real,” he said bleakly.

There was another weighted pause. “You know what would make me feel better right now? Ice cream.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “And I would feel better if I was Bill Gates, but we have limitations.”

She smiled coyly. “I have a secret stash. Break room angel, remember?”

“Good luck with that. Our two speedsters probably inhaled anything you left in the freezer. I learned that the hard way with Caitlin’s pizza pockets.”

“Sure, the _regular_ freezer.” She wiggled her eyebrows mischievously.

He stared at her. “Don’t tell me you hid ice cream in the _morgue.”_

She actually recoiled. “Ew, no, what’s wrong with you?  I hid it in the back of the freezer in Caitlin’s lab.” She hopped off of the counter and shook her head at him. “The _morgue?”_

“It was a valid assumption,” Cisco shouted at her retreating back, and didn’t mention that he assumed it because he hid Girl Scout cookies in the morgue on occasion. He glanced around the break room and noted that one of the lightbulbs in the ceiling was burned out. He opened the cabinet next to the pantry and found the box of spare light bulbs. Only one lonely light bulb remained in the back of the box, so he added it to the ever-expanding mental list of things he needed to take care of. He dragged the stepladder away from the counter and hopped up onto the top step. He pried the plastic cover off of the lighting panel and noticed that it was breaking down. Fantastic, another thing for him to fix. He wrenched the dead bulb out of the socket and screwed the other one in.

“Burnt out again?” He almost fell off of the ladder and turned his head to see Iris in the doorway, holding a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. “Jeez, you’re so jumpy. I thought I just changed out the light bulbs, like, a week ago.”

“They need to be changed more often than you think,” he said, and hopped down. “Are you sure that’s not morgue ice cream?"

“It is _not_ morgue ice cream,” she said, and produced two spoons from the drawer under the counter.

“It’s not something gross like low-fat, either, is it?”

She looked at him incredulously. “That’s _worse_ than being morgue ice cream? Nope, it’s the good stuff, for emergencies. Like the resident optimists failing at Three Good Things.” She peeled the lid off of the ice cream and delved her spoon in.

“Some days just suck,” he said, and skimmed his spoon across the top.

“Well, going by a normal person’s standards, most of our days suck.” She popped her spoon into her mouth and swallowed. “We have to take the good with the bad. That’s what we do, remember?”

He nodded. “Somebody has to look on the bright side. For their sakes.”

“Yup.” Iris licked her spoon. “Somebody needs to take care of things.”

He scooped up another unreasonable spoonful of ice cream. “You should add that to your resume. Iris West, crime reporter by day, superhero therapist by night. And exasperated superhero den mom, like, always.”

“You do an okay job yourself,” she said. “Although, your jokes need some help. They’re getting kinda stale.”

“Don’t go there,” he said, and licked his spoon off. "Now that I know where your secret stash is, Three Good Things is going to be a lot easier. This ice cream is, like, two of them."

She narrowed her eyes. "Fine. But if Barry or Wally finds out about it, I'm moving the stash and you'll _never_ find it." 

"Deal." He stuck his spoon in the top, sealing the deal. “We should probably go home.”

“Probably,” she said, but neither of them moved. Everyone else had had some time to de-stress between work and bed, but their work was never over.

Cisco and Iris took care of Team Flash in every way- she kept the break room stocked with food, he fixed things that were broken, and they kept team morale up. They were the rock of the team, the ones who were strong when no-one else could be. It was a wearying job, but a necessary one.

Cisco had always taken care of things, his whole life. After all, he was an engineer. He liked fixing things. Still, he was grateful that he didn't have to do it alone. In the stillness of late nights like these, he was glad he had someone to take care of him, just as he did for her.

Sometimes you need a friend to do that.


End file.
